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Starting mating nuc on broodless drawn comb ?

I know it is possible to restart a mini mating nuc with a cup of bees on drawn comb without brood. I had planned have brood in drawn shallows which I had inserted between deep brood frames. Bees have not cooperated with me and I will have more queen cells than brood in frames.

Will a cup of bees on four shallow drawn frames work as a mating nuc or will they spread too thin in a larger space? I plan to stock well what I can and just see if a cupful might work as a gamble with the extras.

I am trying to move from making splits with deeps. I will probably end up using mediums but I have shallows on hand.

Re: Starting mating nuc on broodless drawn comb ?

This is my first year raising queens so it is also my first time making up mating nucs. One of the hardest parts for me was making up the mating nucs. Do yourself a favor and make them as strong as you can. Make up less nucs if you have to. If you make them up too weak you will end up with less in the end anyway. I had a terrible time getting them established before the flow started. Robbing was terrible, now that the flow is over here my weaker nucs are starting to get robbed again. Locking the up for a couple days did seem to help them realize this was their new home and they defended it better. Keep the entrances one bee small untill they get built up some.

Re: Starting mating nuc on broodless drawn comb ?

Salty, your thread caught my interest because I have been experimenting with my own two frame mini mating nuc's as well, I wanted to tell you that a cup of bees on four shallows would not be a good idea as there would not be enough bees to to keep the comb and the inside of the box warm, if the mating nuc was a very small one then you would likely have success with only one cup of bees, however with larger full hive length frames that you are planning on using then the amount of bees need to increase as well. With my mating nuc's two deep frames with adhering bees and one swarm cell was pulled from the mother hive and placed into the mating nuc, then closed in with screening and taken to another location to prevent the forage bees from drifting back to the mother hive, after one week the nuc was returned to the original yard. My queen mated well and I started another hive from these two frames and they have done quite well this year. If you wish to talk more on this subject then please feel free to PM me at any time, I would be happy to help you in any way that I can, Here are some pic's of my mini mating nuc's, and perhaps we can share some ideas for improvements in both of our systems.........Bill

My four mini mating nuc's without covers, they are designed for two shallow frames each

One nuc with shallows installed

They can be easily stacked,
With a stack of two and they will accept two deep frames,
A stack of three will accept two deeps and two shallows, or six shallows,
As you can see there are a number of combinations that can be used.

A pair of the mini mating nuc's with cover ( cover not painted yet ) I went with migratory covers in the event that I wanted to place the nuc,s against each other side by side

Re: Starting mating nuc on broodless drawn comb ?

I am breaking up a deep and a half and shaking a few from another. I am closing up, ten day forecast is cloudy, rainy around 70 days and 50's nights, perfect to close the doors and leave the windows open.
First ones will be strong, with a few gambles at the end as well. Will beef up the cup measure though.
Thanks.